


reveille

by bwoozi



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Summer Camp, Boy Scouts, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-21
Updated: 2017-02-21
Packaged: 2018-09-26 00:03:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9852908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bwoozi/pseuds/bwoozi
Summary: There’s an endearment that’s hard to catch with him.Or, The Misadventures of (Almost) Eagle Scout Choi Seungcheol and First Class Scout Boo Seungkwan.





	

**Author's Note:**

> i've broken my soonwoo streak with some 2seung!!! i'm so used to writing soonwoo that i really don't think i nailed their dynamic... ahhh... i wrote this fic in like, 2 days, and i really liked it at first but im not so sure now ;;;
> 
> seungcheol and seungkwan are the same age in this fic Just Because, but seungkwan is 2-3 ranks below seungcheol in terms of boy scouts. if there are any inaccuracies, i'm sorry! i was a girl scout, not a boy scout... hehe
> 
> many thanks to the 2seung group chat for putting up with me talkin about this fic!!! i love u all and i hope it's okay :') <3 shout out to kristine, the 2seung god, who especially indulged my 2seung brainstorming bs... askjfhdkjh

_Merit badges are defined as awards earned by youth members of the Boy Scouts based on activities within an area of study by completing a list of periodically updated requirements. Twenty-one Merit badges are required to become an Eagle Scout, thirteen of which are required. The other eight are the scout’s choice._

_Fishing;_

_(Reveille is defined as a signal sounded especially on a bugle or drum to wake personnel in the armed forces.)_

There’s something very charming about boy scout camp. It makes you feel like you’re a kid again, no matter how old you are, and at the ripe age of eighteen Choi Seungcheol is sat pointedly at the end of a dock with his overshirt and sash piled behind him, his pants rolled up to his knees. The pants are a lot less juvenile than the knee-high socks and shorts, which he actually prefers in the summer, but he still feels like he’s regressing to some degree when he slouches over his fishing pole and wiggles his toes in the cool water. It’ll warm up in the weeks he spends at camp. That’s one of the charming things about it, he thinks.

It’s nice to be away from the outside world, too, as grueling as it feels the first few days. Seungcheol knows Seungkwan prefers the complexity. He just operates at a pace that doesn’t suit hiking and fishing and the like, and Seungcheol gets that. He doesn’t really get why Seungkwan continues coming to boy scout camp even if he doesn’t even have intentions of becoming a star scout, though, at least at first. There’s an endearment that’s hard to catch with him. Seungcheol knows it’s there and that there’s only a matter of time before it either dissipates or reaches a breaking point—he just doesn’t know when is a good time to do anything about it. Again, their timing is completely different. Seungkwan’s only been waiting ten minutes for a bite, antsy beside Seungcheol and furrowing his brow in the direction of the bobber.

“I’m bored.” He quips. Seungcheol smiles.

He knows that Seungkwan likes some things about boy scouts, or else he wouldn’t still be one. If he didn’t have a shred of dignity in him, he’d probably say his favorite part about being a scout is Seungcheol. He and the rest of the troop are all his closest friends, and that’s important and all, but he also likes some of the more trivial, overlooked things—basketing is the only time he lets himself be slow, so he always makes the best baskets. He’s great at wood carving and he knows it. He’s the troop’s go-to bugler. Most of the boys go for athletic and academic badges, but Seungkwan has always been more interested in the gentler things, it seems.

“Bugle something for me.” Seungcheol suggests, nudging Seungkwan’s foot in the water.

Seungkwan snorts. “Why?” He thumbs over his own pole idly.

“I don’t know. Why’d you bring it?”

Seungkwan shrugs. “Habit.” Bugler things.

“Do it. Maybe you’ll confuse a troop if they hear you.”

Seungkwan huffs and pulls his bugle from his backpack’s side pocket, brushing the mouthpiece off with his shirt and taking a deep breath before bringing it to his lips. He starts reveille. Seungcheol shakes his head.

“Not reveille.”

“What, then? I’m best at reveille…”

Seungcheol ponders that. “Something fun. You’re bored, aren’t you?”

The tune is familiar when Seungkwan starts, but around the fourth note, Seungcheol feels like he’s failed his troop leader for not recognizing it—it sounds a bit like reveille, but he knows it isn’t. It hits him when Seungkwan smiles at him through the mouthpiece that it’s the call Seungkwan composed to complete his bugling badge. Seungcheol remembers him panicking when the troop leader asked him what the call was for, and how he blurted “it’s for good luck.”

There’s a tugging on the end of Seungcheol’s line, then—a bluegill. It isn’t much, but it’s the first bite either of them had gotten all day. Seungcheol screams and shakes Seungkwan’s shoulder so hard that he almost falls into the water.

There’s a reason he likes Seungkwan so much, he thinks. Seungkwan must have a reason, too.

 

_Canoeing;_

“This is romantic.” Seungkwan’s joking, probably, but Seungcheol smiles fondly anyway. He’s not vain, but he sees how Seungkwan stares at his upper arms rather than his face. Plus, it totally is romantic, even if Seungcheol had to drag Seungkwan out of bed before sunrise because he wanted to practice his canoeing one more time before his evaluation first thing in the morning. He didn’t even have time to comb his hair and his face is still swollen from sleep. It’s puzzling that it’s attractive on him.

Seungkwan might be grumpy, but he still lets his arm hang out of the side of the canoe, fingers grazing the water as Seungcheol paddles them slowly in a straight line, as his badge requires. The water is still now, so early in the day, but he worries for how it’ll be later—the wind is supposed to pick up. Every time Seungcheol utters a short “whoa,” Seungkwan reassures him and mumbles that he’s doing fine. Then he says shut up, but still, it’s nice. There’s a thin layer of fog that blankets the water and the birds are just waking up, chirping sparsely but clearly in the trees surrounding them.

“Romantic?” Seungcheol comments finally, grunting through a particularly large stroke. “You want me to pull my sleeves up?”

“Nope. Not interested.” Seungkwan is red-faced, but adamant.

He’s got this shit-eating grin, now, and giggles despite his exhaustion. “Doesn’t look like it, Seungkwanie.”

“Would you fuck off?”

Seungcheol decides it’s about time for a break, wiggling his wrists after stilling the boat in the middle of the lake. It’s probably not good that he’s exhausted himself before his evaluation, but he doesn’t mind. In the middle of the lake, they’re not covered by shade at all, and Seungkwan looks exceptionally soft seated across from him. Seungcheol grabs one of his hand—he lets it happen with a dramatic yawn and a pathetic frown at Seungcheol. He still feels bad for waking him up, but not so much for pulling his hand to his lips and planting a kiss on it.

Seungkwan must still be grumpy. He yanks his hand away and rinses it in the water with a scoff. “What was that for?” He’s gone completely red.

“You’re funny.” You’re cute, is what he means. You’re beautiful. Something like that.

“Doesn’t mean you have to put your gross ass morning breath lips on me.” He growls.

“Don’t be so cranky.” Seungcheol pleads. “Look. The sun’s out.” There’s reflection over the water where it wasn’t before. It feels more lively like that, but also reminds Seungcheol a lot of what it looks like when they wake up for roll call. Seungkwan might miss bugling the reveille on a morning as nice as this, and he can’t have that. They should go back soon.

“It’s pretty,” Seungkwan says, “but it hurts my eyes.” He can complain as much as he wants, but the way his lips turn up a bit while he squints makes Seungcheol think it isn’t so bad.

“Shoulda brought sunglasses. A boy scout always comes prepared.” Seungcheol teases. Seungkwan shoots him a deadly look, raising his hand with intention to hit him. Seungcheol really doesn’t blame him.

In his next breath, he announces that they’re turning back. Seungkwan doesn’t look at Seungcheol on the ride back—he’ll say it was out of spite, but Seungcheol knows it’s because the sunrise wasn’t far behind them.

 

_Backpacking;_

“How long does it take you to piss?”

Seungcheol is still zipping himself up when he trots away from his bush of choice, catching a glimpse of Seungkwan in a starfish position in the middle of the path, beside his absolute hulk of a backpack. They’d only fallen behind to pee. Looks like Soonyoung and Seokmin will get pretty far ahead, though, seeing how comfortable Seungkwan has made himself.

“I was holding it for a while.” Seungcheol explains. “Also, I couldn’t find a good bush.”

Seungkwan snickers. “What qualifies a good bush?”

“Lushness. Ability to cover my junk.”

“As if anyone’s looking.”

Seungcheol squats beside him, leaning right over his face. “Comfortable down there?” He asks amusedly. Seungkwan doesn’t do well with backpacking. His legs aren’t very strong and neither is his back, but he did agree to go. He’ll be sore later. Seungcheol will probably take pity on him, too, probably rub his shoulders for him.

He sighs. “I think a spider crawled up my shorts.”

“Nah, there’s just some grass there.” He finds it funny that Seungkwan plopped down in the dirt right next to an ample patch of grass. The edge of it grazes his knee and thigh.

“I’ll take your word for it.” Seungkwan slings an arm over his eyes.

Seungcheol had silently waddled to the side of the path, thumbing over a patch of wildflowers sprouting from the inside of a rotting log. He likes the purple ones best, but ends up reaching for the wild daises in the bunch, picking a few of them carefully and tucking them in his breast pocket. He wanders back to Seungkwan—who hasn’t moved an inch—and lies them on his chest, prying his arm from his face to lie it over them. Seungkwan cranes his neck to see and giggles softly upon catching a glimpse of them. His head hits the dirt again.

“Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today—” Seungcheol starts.

“Oh my God, stop,” The corpse says, “isn’t that for weddings, not funerals?”

“It’s for both.” Seungcheol can’t recall where he learned that, but it’s certainly not something you learn in boy scouts.

“That’s morbid.” He decides with a grunt, forcing himself into a sitting position and rolling his aching shoulders. Seungcheol dutifully wipes the dirt from the back of Seungkwan’s uniform, eventually allowing himself to rub small circles into it as he gathers the daisies that had fallen into his lap upon sitting up. Seungkwan rubs his eyes, hardly noticing that Seungcheol is now tucking them behind his ear.

Seungcheol smiles with his eyes, not his teeth, when he pulls his aviator sunglasses from his neck to show Seungkwan how he looks—Seungkwan shakes his head but still pokes them delicately.

Seokmin and Soonyoung have words for him when they catch up. They’re not very serious, though, at least not after Seungkwan turns his head towards them and they catch the flash of white and yellow nestled between his locks.

 

_Wilderness Survival;_

The one downside of camp was the food. It’s usually bland, unevenly cooked over a fire or in a Dutch oven. An upside, though, is when Seokmin busts out the six-pack of coke he somehow manages to stuff in his backpack each year—he only reveals it when they have a delicious dinner, though. It happened to be walking tacos and monkey bread that night. They revel in the sound of the bottle caps clinking onto their picnic table, savoring the thoroughly missed carbonation on their lips.

They’d gotten into a discussion about Seungcheol becoming an Eagle Scout—it was a pretty hot topic, seeing as he was rushing to finish all his badges in the next year. The five of them prod Seungcheol while nibbling on their dessert, swigging down the last sips of their coke.

“What badges are you working on right now?” Joshua asks, belching into his fist. Wonwoo grimaces, but Seokmin laughs.

"Uh, a couple of the required ones—like, the citizenship ones, and also wilderness survival.”

“Wilderness survival?” Soonyoung swallows a mouthful of bread, following it with a mouthful of coke. “Shit. What do you do for that one? Does the troop leader throw you into the fuckin’ woods alone to fend for yourself?” Seokmin and Seungkwan cackle at that.

“I wish. I just have to research it and show that I know what to do if that were to happen.” He sighs, stretching his arms behind his head and nearly whacking Seungkwan in the process. He’s listening intently, cinnamon sugar staining his smiling mouth. Seungcheol wants to lick it off—not in a dirty way. Not at all. He’d literally be cleaning him.

Soonyoung grumbles. “That blows. I was looking forward to Seungcheol Grylls.”

"You know, Bear Grylls sort of loses its charm when “bear” isn’t in it.” Seungcheol says.

“Bear Choi?” Joshua suggests, smirking around the neck of his bottle. The response is a bit disappointing—he continues nonetheless. “It’s a shame, I was looking forward to seeing you piss on a kerchief and tie it around your head to keep cool.”

“He _does_ that?”

Seokmin nods vehemently. “He does that. Also, he eats cockroaches and shit—that’d be fun to watch. I bet you’d throw up.”

Wonwoo had yet to speak, and he really shouldn’t have. “Eat a worm right now.”

“I’m not going to eat a worm—”

Soonyoung slings an arm around Wonwoo, egging him on. “Eat a worm, Seungcheol. How are you going to survive in the wilderness if you can’t even eat a worm?”

“I’m not going to survive in the wilderness! Well, I mean, if I was _in_ the wilderness I would survive, but I’m not gonna go out there on purpose. Or eat a worm! I—” Seokmin is reaching into the tackle box by his feet for a fat bait worm, yanking it up and letting it squirm between his fingers. Seungcheol dry heaves, much to the amusement of Seungkwan and Soonyoung and the dismay of Joshua. Wonwoo is watching with widened eyes, like he made a grave mistake. Soonyoung reaches into his breast pocket and slides a crisp twenty-dollar bill towards Seungcheol and he focuses on it through the laughter around him—that’s when his disgust turns into determination and he pries the worm from his hands, trying to swallow it without chewing. It doesn’t work out.

He’s vomiting with his head in the metal trash can beside the table. Seungkwan cries with laughter, coke spewing from his nose. He rubs Seungcheol’s back through it and the rest of the table is a hollering mess, save for Wonwoo. His face falls in his hands. He looks utterly suicidal.

Seungcheol can’t turn down twenty dollars or have his pride marred, but he mostly just thinks that he can’t be a pussy if Seungkwan is watching. He’s absolutely whipped. Seungkwan hates how much he loves that.

 

_Geocaching;_

Geocaching is one of the few things involved with boy scouts that Seungkwan will admit liking. Apparently, he likes it enough to tag along behind Seungcheol on a geocaching trip during their few hours of free time before bed. It’s long enough that the two take and replace from six or so geocaches, only realizing the sun was setting when they were at least a two miles away from camp—they wouldn’t make it. Seungcheol had called the troop leader on a walkie-talkie and found the nearest troop’s campsite, catching the last few minutes of dinner and snacking on their leftovers. The troop they had stumbled upon offered them cots since the night was supposed to get cold, uncharacteristically so for the summer. Seungcheol remarks that there’s a reason he likes boy scouts so much—if you’re not prepared, then someone else is, and they’re almost always generous. Plus, the troop leaders at camp tend to get more lenient as time goes on, which is a recipe for misadventures.

They’d set up their tent a modest distance outside of the troop’s camp, far enough away to not be intrusive. Seungkwan doesn’t even complain about getting lost. It’s nice to stay with a troop without Soonyoung and Seokmin, who always share a tent and giggle to themselves until at least midnight.

“I’m cold.” Seungcheol pouts from his cot, where he’s curled into himself and facing the tent’s wall. He’d turn to face Seungkwan, but he fears he might kick off part of his blanket in the process and freeze a limb off.

Seungkwan scoffs. “Yeah? What happened to always being prepared?”

“I don’t know what to tell you, I _did_ just get us lost. Kind of.” He knew where they were, he just got carried away, is all. His teeth chatter, a pathetic moan coming from high in his throat. “Let me come lie in your cot.”

“No, fatty. It’ll break.” Seungkwan grouses.

“Fatty? Do you want to see my personal fitness badge?”

“I hate you.”

Seungcheol can feel Seungkwan’s smile from behind him. There’s a small puff of air that sounds like a laugh, which Seungcheol returns, if only to himself. “Can I please? You must be cold, too. I’ll bring my blanket.”

There’s a silence where Seungkwan seems to be bargaining with himself. “Hurry up before I change my mind.”

Seungcheol is padding over to Seungkwan’s cot before he even finishes his sentence, urging him to make room with a trembling hand on his shoulder. It’s warm when he burrows under his blanket, warmer when he layers his on top of it, and warmest when he nuzzles in close to him, tucking his face into his jawline and curling his hands into his chest. It doesn’t take long for their shivering to stop, the breath that tickles their skin becoming warmer with each passing second.

The cot is much too narrow for the two of them, and it’s a pretty wide cot. It might even be for two people, actually, with how ridiculous the widths of most camping cots are—all Seungcheol knows is they got the leftover cots, as his own cot sat crooked no matter where he positioned it, and Seungkwan’s looked at least twenty years old, or perhaps homemade. Maybe it was for a particularly husky troop leader. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that the cot hardly leaves any space between he and Seungkwan’s face when he pulls away, and this lack makes him impulsively lean in and press his lips to his cheeks. His cheeks are fleshier and have a lot more give to them in comparison to his hand, not to mention the kisses themselves last longer, harboring so much pent up affection that Seungcheol feels like he’s exploding.

But Seungkwan isn’t surprised, more entertained than anything. He laughs helplessly. “Why are you kissing me?”

“Your cheeks are cold.” Excuses.

Seungkwan tilts his face away, but doesn’t wipe his cheek like he did his hand. “So are your lips.”

“Warm them up for me?” Seungcheol whispers. He finds Seungkwan’s hand under the blanket and locks eyes with him expectantly in the dim light of their lantern.

“You’re so cheesy,” He complains, but closes his eyes and leans in nonetheless.

Seungcheol tastes like unsalted, unbuttered baked potato—which is fitting, considering they ate it not long before. He wishes they were as warm as those potatoes, but his lips are just as cold as Seungkwan said. They warm up, though, becoming pliant with each drag of Seungcheol’s lower lip against his, gentle sighs grazing each other’s philtrums. Seungcheol’s hand finds purchase on the back of Seungkwan’s neck briefly before he stretches it behind himself to turn off the lantern, deepening the kiss as soon as it’s off, as if anyone would’ve been able to see beforehand.

They’re a mess of grabbing hands and grazing noses, pulling each other closer until Seungkwan forgets to breathe and pulls away, cursing the full moon for making Seungcheol visible at all. He chews his lip.

“Warm yet?”

“Not quite.” There are a few lingering pecks before Seungkwan smiles sheepishly at Seungcheol, who looks fantastically stupid and cuddly with 2 big blankets tucked up under his chin.

“What are we doing?” Seungkwan asks suddenly. He hides his face with the hand that isn’t crushed awkwardly between them.

Seungcheol laughs breathily. “I don’t know. I’m tired.”

"Go to sleep, then.”

The cot cries with effort when Seungcheol turns over, dragging one of Seungkwan’s arms with him and laying it over his waist. Seungkwan’s breath is overwhelmingly loud over the lull of crickets and the far-off sound of the other troop’s scouts at their fire. He’s a little short to be the big spoon, but not by much. His nose rests comfortably on Seungcheol’s nape and his hand splays nicely across his broad chest.

Seungcheol sniffles, his nose out in the cold again. “You should go out with me.” He whispers, no real weight in his suggestion. Seungkwan rolls his eyes.

“You don’t actually want that; camp just makes you lonely.”

Seungcheol scoots backward more, if that was even possible. “You’re right. About the camp thing. But I think I do, is the thing—want that, that is.”

“If you still do when we’re home, you can ask me then.” Seungkwan swallows. “Deal?”

Seungcheol doesn’t want to agree, but he knows he can’t force Seungkwan into anything. “Will you say no?”

“Why would I tell you?” Seungkwan’s quiet, burying his face into Seungcheol’s neck and placing a hand over his. Seungcheol smiles to himself, smug.

“Touché.”

 

_Collections;_

The polaroids are strewn across his bed, a grand total of seven gridded display frames from the craft store stacked on top of each other towards his pillow. They’d been in albums before, organized only by date, but he figures he should have them more visible and sorted by type, in the proper spirit of his collection badge. His real collection is of polaroid cameras rather than polaroids themselves. He was assigned to discuss the value of them in the eyes of other collectors, but he really doesn’t know about any of that. He thinks the value lies more in what comes out of them rather than what goes into them. What goes into them literally is irrelevant, though, considering how much money he puts into film for them.

Embarrassing as it is, his favorite is his Fujifilm Instax, that obnoxious Instagram-y one. It’s girly, but he thinks the baby blue is cute, and the film is easy enough to find. The bulk of his pictures are from that camera, and it’s handy that it’s so popular, since there are apparently frames made especially for them now—Seungcheol bought a ton of them on impulse. He would’ve asked Seungkwan to help him delegate them to different frames, but he was out with his mom on the day he chose to do it. Soonyoung will do. He’ll have to do, even if he lies on the floor the entire time.

“How many groups do you even have them separated into?” He pries, scratching the carpet with his nubby fingertips. Seungcheol slides a photo, one of Seungkwan and Seokmin in front of a kitschy toy store downtown, into the top right corner of one of the frames.

“Five,” Seungcheol says. Pictures of Seungkwan was one. Another was selfies (including selfies with Seungkwan). The others were landscape and nature shots (that frame would be hung on its side), pictures in the city, and miscellaneous pictures, which were mostly odd portrait shots of objects or dogs.

“Why seven frames then?”

Seungcheol clicks his tongue. “Some groups are bigger, so they need two frames.”

“Which ones?”

Seungcheol scratches his neck. “Landscape shots.” He says first. A lot of them are from camp, so it’s justifiable. Soonyoung looks at him expectantly before he continues. “And… pictures of Seungkwan…”

Soonyoung lets out a short shout of laughter. “Holy shit, you’re whipped.”

“I know.” He frowns. Soonyoung comes to his feet to loom over Seungcheol’s shoulder, patting it jovially, reassuringly. He finds a place standing beside him and starts separating the pictures by the groups he described in silence, smiling at him when he looked up from his current frame. He’d started with pictures of Seungkwan—the pile was hefty.

“These’re looking nice,” he remarks after a pause, “Seungkwanie will like them, you know."

 

_Exploration;_

“Seunkwanie,” Seungcheol whines over the phone, “I wanted to do the exploration badge for so long, but it’s just… like… research.”

He really should be relieved. He’s trying desperately to become an Eagle Scout before he graduates high school, and considering camp’s in the summer, he needs badges that he can complete on top of homework during the school year.

“It can’t be that bad.” Seungkwan says, audibly munching on something. Seungcheol realizes he hasn’t eaten in a while—he’s been too absorbed in the fabled second pages of Google, trying to find relevant information on long dead notable European men, but to no avail. His stomach growls. He wants to be with Seungkwan, both out of hunger and thirst, the thirst being for sympathy. Maybe a back rub. He’s been hunched over his laptop for a while.

 _“Ugh.”_ He moans into the receiver. Seungkwan tsks.

“You’re such a baby, Cheol. It has to be at least a little interesting.”

“It’s really not,” He insists, then asks, “can I come over?”

“Sure? It’s late, but I’m not doing anything.”

Seungcheol was really already on his way, which explains why Seungkwan cocks an eyebrow at him when he comes up to his room less than five minutes later. He doesn’t question it. The bag of chocolates on Seungkwan’s bed ends up in Seungcheol’s hands as quickly as Seungcheol ends up lounging beside Seungkwan, who’s pushing his cuticles back and listening to some disco song from the eighties with one headphone. It’s so comfortingly _Seungkwan_ that Seungcheol is almost overwhelmed, fighting the urge to say something mushy or wrap his arms around him. It’s somehow more suffocating when they’re back home. He can get away with a lot at camp.

“I miss camp,” Seungcheol confesses then, unwrapping a chocolate and tossing it in his mouth. He can’t pinpoint why he misses it, is the problem. Why was he in boy scouts, anyway? He just likes camping, right? Badges feel like chores.

Seungkwan laughs. “You always say that when it starts to get cold out.”

“I feel cooped up.” He says. Physically, but also emotionally—he doesn’t know why he still lets himself be so involved, in Seungkwan, in boy scouts, and it eats away at him. Seungkwan must sense that—he shoots him a sympathetic sulky face and leans on his shoulder, inspecting his nails one last time before putting aside his cuticle pusher.

“I can see that.” Seungkwan is practically begging Seungcheol to think back to camp—he can’t understand why he’s so scared to make the first move. Then again, Seungkwan hasn’t even considered it himself.

“Did you know that the sailors on Magellan’s ship ate rats and sawdust to survive?” Seungcheol muses, patting Seungkwan’s head. Seungkwan chuckles. Seungcheol’s really just trying to compare his suffering to something, but he ends up on a tangent when Seungkwan questions him. He practically recites his hours of research at him, until Seungkwan is yawning and asking for Seungcheol to turn the lamp off. He scoots down, resting his head on Seungcheol’s stomach and allowing his rambling to lull him to sleep.

If Seungkwan was awake, Seungcheol knows he would’ve made some smart comment about how he must be interested if he could talk about it for so long. He very well might be, and he only realizes that when he rests his hand on Seungkwan’s shoulder blade, feeling it rise and fall beneath his fingers.

It’s precisely the reason he still lets himself be so involved.

 

_Bugling;_

                _(Taps is defined as a bugle call played at dusk, during flag ceremonies, and at military funerals by the United States armed forces.)_

Taps is in no way a victory call. Taps is what’s played for the end of something, and the tune drips with an easily recognized and palatable solemnness. The reason it feels like a victory call in the moment is because it’s the last call Seungcheol had left to learn before he could get his bugling badge, his last badge, that Seungkwan so patiently taught him to complete over the span of a month. The summer is creeping up on the two of them and Seungcheol anticipates it, anticipates the culmination of something he’s been working towards since as long as he can remember.

On the last note of Taps, when he’d finally played it all the way through, Seungkwan lets out this ecstatic yell while he lurches forward to wrap his arms around Seungcheol. They’re on his bed and Seungcheol’s arms are up, holding Seungkwan’s bugle like a trophy. Seungcheol is moved at Seungkwan’s excitement—it’s not like he’s the one becoming an Eagle Scout.

“I’m so happy for you,” He says into Seungcheol’s chest, forcing him onto his back. Seungcheol nearly hits his head on the headboard, but he can’t bring himself to care. From this angle, his polaroid frames are visible, hung tidily on the wall his bed is pushed against.

He squeezes Seungkwan, bugle still in his hands. “I’m happy for me too, holy shit.”

When Seungkwan sits up, he’s straddling Seungcheol, beaming down at him like the sun. “Now everyone at camp will fucking worship you.”

Seungcheol would reply, but there are some things you just can’t wait for. The compulsion for him to sit up under Seungkwan is strong and the compulsion to catch his lips in a kiss is stronger—Seungkwan is just as eager, hardly able to keep himself from smiling. Seungcheol doesn’t even mind that he’s kissing his teeth. His lips are numb from bugling.

Seungkwan operates differently than Seungcheol, that’s for sure, but when he kisses him, it’s completely synchronous. And cathartic, and amazing, and comfortable, and something Seungcheol hates himself for not being sure that he wanted it always. He can never tell what place he likes best, what suits him, but he thinks it might be around Seungkwan—and perhaps that’s why Seungkwan has stuck around for so long. Seungkwan stayed in boy scouts for Seungcheol, but Seungcheol only now realizes he’s stayed for Seungkwan, too. It’s interesting to think about while Seungkwan’s arms drape over his shoulders, lips melding against his with reckless abandon.

“Let me take you out for dinner after my Eagle Scout ceremony.” He eventually mumbles into Seungkwan’s jawline, hands roaming up and down his back.

Seungkwan furrows his brow. “Your ceremony’s two months from now.”

“Oh.” Seungcheol clearly doesn’t know what Seungkwan’s getting at—he looks disappointed, briefly. “Uh.”

“Let’s go tomorrow?” He suggests, his hands on his chest, then his head on his hands. The fondness in his face isn’t beneath a scowl anymore, and Seungcheol marvels at it. “We can go after your ceremony too, though.”

Seungcheol giggles with embarrassment despite himself.

“Deal.”


End file.
